Is this being lazy or something else?

Post Reply New Topic

I want to understand someone that I know with AS. I have know this person since 2012 or so and even though I read about AS, I didn't see it as someone that might be lazy. May be I'm looking at this wrong. . .but this friend of mine really really likes fast food a lot. She has food at home and well . . . it just seems to me that she doesn't want to fix food from home. She can cook an egg. She told me. She knows how to make mac and cheese. She tells me obsessively - (over and over again she tells me) that she loves mac and cheese. I say "Yes I KNOW you like mac and cheese, you tell me all the time". (I guess she forgets how often she shares stuff over and over again. It gets really OLD hearing how much she likes things or can't have this or can't have that). She can make a grilled cheese sandwich on the stove. She told me she loves them.

So why in the hell does not she make a freaking burrito from home? It is that hard to make a burritro from home? Get a freaking tortilla, get some lettuce, brown some freaking ground beef and heat up some refried beans and put them in a freaking tortilla and bam, you got a nice homemade burrito. Or if you want something else in it - go out and get that and put it in your burrito. Like hot sauce. She is on SSI so she HAS MONEY to go out and purcahse food from the store. What she does is go out to fast food places and spends her money on crap fast food. I don't know it just sounds like she is lazy and she'd rather have someone else make her food for her when she can do it at home herself. If she can fry a freaking grilled cheese sandwich on the stove by herself, she can get ground beef and make it into a patty the size of her hand and put that patty on the stove and fry it on one side for 4 or 5 mins on low heat. It is not THAT FREAKING HARD. She told me herself she does not know "how to cook". Cook? Cook? Jesus Christ Superstar. I don't know how to "cook" either but I know how to brown ground beef enough so I can eat it. She makes it out like she needs to be a 5 star chef in order to "cook" from home.

What is going on in this girls mind? I mean, Jesus Lord she is freaking 30 years old! Didn't her own parent teach her how to get a wad a beef and to make it flat the size of her hands and to put it in the skillet (or pan) and to put the stove on low and to watch that sucker for all of freaking 4 mins and then to flip it? Is that - really that hard to do?

She told me she doesn't know how to make hash browns! Hash browns? Come on. really. It is so simple. Get them from store, freeze them. When you want them take some out (they will be frozen) and put them in the microwave to defrost them. May be 1 min on defrost. Get a skillet or pan and put 1 tablespoon of oil in pan. Let it heat up 1 min. Put the freaking hashbrowns in the pan. Watch. Just like a freaking grilled cheese sandwich. It is the same freaking process. Watch it to make sure it don't burn. Flip them over just like your flip a grilled cheese sandwich.
What is so freaking hard about making hash browns. It makes me think that her parents didn't teach her anything about making simple food from home. A hamburger - she said "I don't know how to make them". Hash browns "I don't know how to make them".
Wow. I don't know how this person would live if her parents died. What will happen to this person once she is say 50 or 60 years old when her parents are around 70 or 80 years old? Will adults with Asperger Syndrome need to go into a nursing home around age 60 since their parents die and they can't take basic care of themselves?

I don't understand why this bothers you so much. It is her money, her choice about how to spend it. Perhaps she values the time she saves by not cooking over the value of the money she spends on fast food.

It isn't necessarily laziness. Learning a new task or a new skill for someone with AS can often be incredibly overwhelming. It's that anxiety change or new habits bring that can't really be explained unless you have AS. It's frustrating for the outside world and it will never make sense to anyone else, but it probably does for them. My own experiences (and hers) aren't true for everyone, though. I can't make pancakes. Or eggs. Or hashbrowns. Or a burrito. I don't know why, it's hard to find the motivation to do something I've never done before. But I can make a homemade meatloaf from scratch, which takes a half hour to prepare and an extra 1 1/2 hours to cook. And I'm sure there's some aspies out there who are wizards in the kitchen (I'm not one) so I really don't know.

If you want to support your friend, don't shame them for it, it will only make them care less. Try to show them the way to make simple foods that come easy to you. Show them diet and variety is important, especially the use of whole wheat instead of white bread.

Tone down the aspie hate too, man.. not being able to cook doesn't mean we're dependent losers.

Well if I was her friend I'd probably visit one day with a burrito kit and make some together. Yay, friends bonding while making her favourite food. But to be honest the tone of your posts is pretty much along the lines of you despise this person so I think the best thing overall would be to just stop visiting. It would probably be good for her too. What are you expecting us to say....


Oh yeah she's lazy as all get out, using her AS as a crutch and you should totally tell her so?

If that's your opinion, and to be honest none of us know this person so we can't say whether your opinion holds water or not, then I doubt anything we tell you will change your mind. In which case all that's left is for you to decide where your friendship stands.